Agriculture Department Suspends Critical Tracking Of Plunging Honey Bee Population

Tuesday, July 9th, 2019

Agriculture Department Suspends Critical Tracking Of Plunging Honey Bee Population

Author: Mary Papenfuss
Source: HuffPost
Publication Date: 07/08/2019 03:10 am ET
Link: Agriculture Department Suspends Critical Tracking Of Plunging Honey Bee Population

Stephan: You’ve seen what Norway doing to prepare for the future, here’s what we are doing in the United States. Could it be more antipodal?

To spread public awareness about how bee colony collapse is threatening the nation’s food supply.
Credit: Mickey Faulkner/cc/flickr

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced that it’s suspending tracking the plunging honeybee population because of a budget shortfall.

The department will suspend data collection for its Honey Bee Colonies report, and officials did not say when — or if — it would be restarted. It will release data already collected from January 2018 through April of this year.

The Agricultural Department has been a key source of data on the insects, which is critically important to scientists and farmers.

The number of honey bee hives, vital to pollinating crops for the agricultural industry and other plants for wildlife, plummeted from

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